Ryan Day responds to report of tampering with Jeremiah Smith, calls for enforcement

Ohio State head coach Ryan Day addressed a report from On3’s Pete Nakos that the Buckeyes’ NIL collective The Foundation is aggressively working to retain star receivers Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate amid serious interest from outside programs looking to entice them into the NCAA Transfer Portal.

Nakos reported Smith, who rewrote Ohio State’s freshman receiver records in 2024, is drawing strong interest from other elite college football programs allegedly offering NIL deals in the range of $4.5-5 million. Tate is allegedly commanding a NIL deal in the $1 million range.

The Buckeyes are fresh off Monday night’s College Football Playoff National Championship win over Notre Dame, 34-23, in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Now, they are working to keep their talented roster intact during a five-day transfer portal window that closes on Saturday.

Day addressed the tampering allegations during an appearance on Friday’s The Dan Patrick Show.

Amid reports of a $4.5M offer to Jeremiah Smith, Ryan Day shares his approach to player retention

"You have to value them, do everything you can to get what they deserve and what's fair.. As coaches we're all looking for more guidelines on this, everything is so gray right now." pic.twitter.com/0rIpyIER40

— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) January 24, 2025

“I think the first thing you have to do is bring in great people and great families, but you also have to value them and try to do everything you can to get what they deserve and what’s fair,” Day told Patrick on Friday. “But there’s also something to be said for being around a program like ours, and you think if it’s all equal, we’ll have our chance to get our share of guys. But it is different, there’s no question. I think as coaches, we’re all looking for a little bit more guidelines on this. Everything is so gray right now.”

Ryan Day: NCAA ‘enforcement is really strained right now’ in age of NIL, transfer portal

Patrick then asked Day how outside programs are even capable of tampering with players on another team’s roster before they’ve even entered the transfer portal.

“I think one of the big issues we have across the board in college football right now is enforcement,” Day said. “I mean, you know some of the stories of some of the things that have gone on just within the last couple of years or even in the past, but enforcement is really strained right now. So, until we start enforcing some of these rules, people can just call someone’s agent or someone’s parents and offer them a certain amount of money, and then it goes from there. That’s just part of it. There’s so many other things that come into play.

“That’s one of the things to me that I think we’ve got to get addressed in college sports and college football is enforcement. Because right now, there’s virtually none. And it’s gotten worse as time has gone on.”

With revenue sharing on pace to kick in on July 1 and booster-led NIL collective still spending dollars, top programs are watching their payrolls soar. A group of college football teams will be spending $27 to $30 million in 2025.

Ohio State’s national championship celebration is scheduled for Sunday at The Horseshoe. But for the next 48 hours, the Buckeyes are locked in on retaining top talent.

Pete Nakos contributed to this report.